Transformation of verbal signs as a result of the interactions of language systems

Interlingual contacts foster not only the phenomenon of borrowing verbal signs from a donor language into a host language. This is the first stage of much wider phenomena which is interaction between the whole semiotic systems. The transfer of a sign itself from one system to another launches different processes connected with its adaptation in the host system – developing new syntactic structures (adaptation to the grammar rules of the host language), new relations between signs and their designata and new interpretations. An important role in the adaptation of new verbal signs in host languages plays the pragmatic aspect: e.g. the word haker (Eng. hacker) exists in Polish only with negative connotation, although in English it has also neutral meanings. As a result of interactions between the language systems a very meaning can become a borrowing. The already existing verbal sign in the host language is somewhat ‘contaminated’ with additional meaning which it didn’t have so far. The process of semiosis here is the interaction between language systems which results in new meanings (which are actually new signs). The sign is therefore a reaction (according to S. Petrilli and A. Punzio) to the influence of cultural, social, political, economic, psychological and other factors